“Cable subscribers pay for Murdock and Ryan. If a popular show leaves, those that don’t watch Fox but still have them on cable are still Subscribers.”
It may be that conservative subscribers give up their cable TV, Hulu TV, Sling, Direct TV, and other streaming services carrying Fox. After all you can pretty much watch anything you wish to watch, except possibly sports, through individual streaming services and YouTube.
Advertising is still important to the auto companies, consumer products companies, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. If advertising wasn’t important there would be none on cable networks. Advertisers pay for eyeballs, not subscribers.
Lots of sports options, hard with the NFL , NBA, NHL and MLB, but doable. I stopped watching all American sports years ago. OI watch fights out of Asia and Europe and soccer.